I think (and hope) they want to go straight for a "bang". Quickly get into showing the actual game rather than tease with concept arts / screenshots for months. At least they've got a comfort of doing that because they've kept blackout for 4 years.

I'm gonna be harsh and say that I hope that Tim Willits is distanced as far as possible from the development team. The reason I say that, is because in interviews he seems like he has no clue what Doom is about and what its prominent key features are. He talks about it like its just another shooter, while in fact the Doom name should stand for the bloodiest and most disturbing game out there.

The whole reason why I think Doom 3 was so hard to get into, was because the game was programmed to be so damn shallow. When you empty your pistol on a zombie (which sounds like a cap gun), the body just vanishes. That alone really pussyfies the whole game! I don't want Doom 4 to be a step by step remake of the first games, I really do want them to innovate, but please bring something with balls.

Initially Carmack said that the leader of the DOOM team is Kevin Cloud. It still seemed like that a year ago where on one of the panels everyone including Carmack and Willits directed a DOOM related question to him. This year however Carmack mentioned Matt Hooper as a guy who will talk about DOOM 4. So it's hard to say. I'm not sure what Tim is doing, he was in charge of RAGE so the bulk of DOOM was done under someone else's command.

On another subject, I always feel it's necessary to have a reality check from time to time. Point is, if you didn't like DOOM 3 and RAGE, you will probably not like DOOM 4. I'm saying that because I often see a lot of people who bash the hell out of RAGE / D3 and still expect DOOM 4 to be the second coming. DOOM 4 will not be like RAGE, just like RAGE is not like DOOM 3. But the progression / direction remains a reference point. So in case some of you have sky-high expectations, just remember that if you dislike D3 / RAGE, DOOM 4 will not magically make all your wishes come true.

Agentbromsnor said:I'm gonna be harsh and say that I hope that Tim Willits is distanced as far as possible from the development team. The reason I say that, is because in interviews he seems like he has no clue what Doom is about and what its prominent key features are. He talks about it like its just another shooter, while in fact the Doom name should stand for the bloodiest and most disturbing game out there.

The whole reason why I think Doom 3 was so hard to get into, was because the game was programmed to be so damn shallow. When you empty your pistol on a zombie (which sounds like a cap gun), the body just vanishes. That alone really pussyfies the whole game! I don't want Doom 4 to be a step by step remake of the first games, I really do want them to innovate, but please bring something with balls.

Although, I rather like Id Software's most recent titles, I have to say that I feel quite similar. I wish Romero had stayed at Id. Sure, you might say a game like Daikatana would have been made but Carmack would never have allowed that. Not with the influence he knew he had and wasn't afraid to use it.

Agentbromsnor said:I'm gonna be harsh and say that I hope that Tim Willits is distanced as far as possible from the development team. The reason I say that, is because in interviews he seems like he has no clue what Doom is about and what its prominent key features are. He talks about it like its just another shooter, while in fact the Doom name should stand for the bloodiest and most disturbing game out there.

The whole reason why I think Doom 3 was so hard to get into, was because the game was programmed to be so damn shallow. When you empty your pistol on a zombie (which sounds like a cap gun), the body just vanishes. That alone really pussyfies the whole game! I don't want Doom 4 to be a step by step remake of the first games, I really do want them to innovate, but please bring something with balls.

Doom isn't about blood and gore. The id guys always said the gore in their games was there for its humor value. Practically every game has gore now, it's nothing special, certainly not something that needs more emphasis put on it.

To me, the real defining factors of Doom are its speed and the number of opponents. Doom 3 lacked both of those things; Doom 3 plays more like a bogged down Quake 2 than Doom.

Dragonsbrethren said:
Doom isn't about blood and gore. The id guys always said the gore in their games was there for its humor value. Practically every game has gore now, it's nothing special, certainly not something that needs more emphasis put on it.

To me, the real defining factors of Doom are its speed and the number of opponents. Doom 3 lacked both of those things; Doom 3 plays more like a bogged down Quake 2 than Doom.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned that before but it's interesting. It would seem DOOM is such a simple game where the systems, ideas and permise are all clear yet it seems everyone values vastly different elements in its design. That's why no matter how classic DOOM 4 is, legions of fans will be disappointed.

Regarding vanishing corpses, who knows. In RAGE corpses didn't disappear except for mutants. I mean they did disappear but I'm not sure after how long, definitively not during the mission.

Touchdown said:Regarding vanishing corpses, who knows. In RAGE corpses didn't disappear except for mutants. I mean they did disappear but I'm not sure after how long, definitively not during the mission.

Corpses (sans mutants, as you explained) vanished only after you collected any inventory from them (or after you leave the level).

Unfortunately if that's a major thing for someone, I think that's as far as we will get. While the old days of seas of corpses were great, that's not that easy nowadays where a bunch of corpses may screw up the performance. Some games did that (stalker!) but considering id wants to keep a steady fps (30 for DOOM, unless you will run an insane PC, then you get 60), I'm sure there will be some "corpse removing" mechanic. Personally I just don't want enemies to vanish the moment they die.

Touchdown said:Initially Carmack said that the leader of the DOOM team is Kevin Cloud. It still seemed like that a year ago where on one of the panels everyone including Carmack and Willits directed a DOOM related question to him. This year however Carmack mentioned Matt Hooper as a guy who will talk about DOOM 4. So it's hard to say. I'm not sure what Tim is doing, he was in charge of RAGE so the bulk of DOOM was done under someone else's command.

On another subject, I always feel it's necessary to have a reality check from time to time. Point is, if you didn't like DOOM 3 and RAGE, you will probably not like DOOM 4. I'm saying that because I often see a lot of people who bash the hell out of RAGE / D3 and still expect DOOM 4 to be the second coming. DOOM 4 will not be like RAGE, just like RAGE is not like DOOM 3. But the progression / direction remains a reference point. So in case some of you have sky-high expectations, just remember that if you dislike D3 / RAGE, DOOM 4 will not magically make all your wishes come true.

I don't think Tim Willits can't be a good development leader or anything, and I don't want to give some kind of impression that Doom 4 should follow some sort of elitist guide of what Doom is supposed to be and what not. I do think a sequel to Doom would be better if it had somebody on board with more experience working on the previous (classic) Doom games, because it is a sequel after all.

Like I said before I actually quite like RAGE. If Doom 4's gameplay is going to be as fluid as RAGE I'm a happy guy, even though its unfortunate that they said that they brought the FPS down to 30 on consoles instead of the amazing 60 FPS that RAGE introduced. That might actually be the best feature that John Carmack introduced this time around. While 60 FPS might be a regular feature for PC gamers, on consoles a game like RAGE that runs as smooth and still looks good was not seen before.

Touchdown said:Unfortunately if that's a major thing for someone, I think that's as far as we will get. While the old days of seas of corpses were great, that's not that easy nowadays where a bunch of corpses may screw up the performance. Some games did that (stalker!) but considering id wants to keep a steady fps (30 for DOOM, unless you will run an insane PC, then you get 60), I'm sure there will be some "corpse removing" mechanic. Personally I just don't want enemies to vanish the moment they die.

I agree, I hated that in Doom 3. It will probably sound sadistic, but those corpses were your trophy's! Its like when you go out drinking with friends; you enjoy seeing a table stacked with empty bottles and glasses. If there was a bartender that would remove every bottle as soon as it was empty, it would kill all the fun of drinking! Okay, weird example, but you get my point. :P

This is true, or at least not once you get past or get bored of the superficial appeal of it's violence.

But on the other hand, it wouldn't have quite the same charm without it. As you rightly say, the gore was there for humour value (as with lots of other violent games of that era, despite mainstream media not getting the joke) and it's lost it's meaning over the years. But would you really want Doom 4 to consist of bloodless carnage, regardless of it's other merits and failings?

There's a difference between B-movie blood and gore, and gore that is appropriate for the context. I think when battling demons and zombies, it would be appropriate. Even though it shouldn't be in the center of the gameplay.

Agentbromsnor said:There's a difference between B-movie blood and gore, and gore that is appropriate for the context.

Yeah, of course. But I guess I'm a nostalgic old git in the sense that I miss the days when games didn't take themselves too seriously (Doom 3 is guilty of it, even with it's two-dimensional hammy villain etc), despite not being a member of the "modern games suck" party or any of it's less vocal derivatives.

Agentbromsnor said:If Doom 4's gameplay is going to be as fluid as RAGE I'm a happy guy, even though its unfortunate that they said that they brought the FPS down to 30 on consoles instead of the amazing 60 FPS that RAGE introduced.

It seems like an appropriate tradeoff. RAGE looked fantastic but there wasn't a whole lot going on on screen; a couple of guys, explosion here and there. While not described in details, it's been said DOOM 4 will have a lot more stuff going on, more enemies on screen etc. Carmack also mentioned that they want to have more dynamic / interactive things in the gameworld so that goes in that direction as well. And as a PC gamer, I'm happy I will be able to get 60fps with that. Hopefully. Might need to upgrade though.

It seems like an appropriate tradeoff. RAGE looked fantastic but there wasn't a whole lot going on on screen; a couple of guys, explosion here and there. While not described in details, it's been said DOOM 4 will have a lot more stuff going on, more enemies on screen etc. Carmack also mentioned that they want to have more dynamic / interactive things in the gameworld so that goes in that direction as well. And as a PC gamer, I'm happy I will be able to get 60fps with that. Hopefully. Might need to upgrade though.

I'm usually not too thrilled with playing games on my PC, because while my specs are pretty up to date, I'm using this computer to edit stuff and record music so I'm probably going to get the 360 version (if its going to be any good).

I would really like to see detailed but not excessive gore in "Doom 4." "Doom 3" had some really awkward gore which became evident when enemies gibbed; a grunt's brain would just fly out of his head or the chest would suddenly be cut open in a surgically precise manner. I agree that gore should not be the main draw of "Doom 4," but it should be as graphic and visceral as the original games were, just in a modern context. A few examples of what I'd like to see:

- Enemies begin to literally fall apart as they take heavy gunfire or react to an explosion. This may be difficult or impossible to implement without scripting, but at the very least, it should not be as cut-and-dry as clean decapitations, perfect dismemberments or the entire body gibbing at once.

- Blood should pour out and drip down, rather than spray out in an instantly disappearing vapor or stream of funky particles, which is surprisingly how many games still display blood. "Left 4 Dead 2" did a pretty good job with dripping blood. It would be interesting if the enemies could slowly bleed to death if mortally injured.

- In "Doom 3," soldiers could be gibbed after death, but of course it looked awkward. A better solution: All enemies can be gibbed after death if they are plugged with enough bullets or explosive weaponry to cause them to simply fall apart.

- "Brutal Doom" had some interesting custom death animations such as being set on fire, burnt to a cinder, bludgeoned or slain via berserk pack. That would be great to see in the new game.

Hopefully I'm not being too creepy here. Like I said, id has no reason to focus all their resources into making the gore so spectacular that it becomes the only reason to play. But it's important to make it satisfying to kill enemies, which "Doom" did such a great job of because, despite being low-resolution sprites, they looked great and had very violent death sequenes.

- More IMP types not just the standard fireball throwing imp something.. like more unique.
- A grenade launcher - perhaps
- A sniper rifle
- Swimmable water
- Maybe doom 4 could feature lovely outdoor areas with beautiful terrain and trees
- Some Hell levels.
- Similar marines you met back at Mars City.
And thats all I have to say.

gruntkiller4000 said:1) More IMP types not just the standard fireball throwing imp something.. like more unique.
2) A grenade launcher - perhaps
3) A sniper rifle

1) True, but I believe that was introduced in Doom 3, in the form of Maggots and Wraiths. Maggot was essentially a failed imp and Wraith had no fireball but teleporting ability. Maybe some variation wouldn't go amiss.

2) Personally, I feel that they made a mistake adding Grenades in Doom 3. Who would bother with a grenade launcher when a rocket launcher is in the game too?

GoatLord said:I would really like to see detailed but not excessive gore in "Doom 4." "Doom 3" had some really awkward gore which became evident when enemies gibbed; a grunt's brain would just fly out of his head or the chest would suddenly be cut open in a surgically precise manner. I agree that gore should not be the main draw of "Doom 4," but it should be as graphic and visceral as the original games were, just in a modern context. A few examples of what I'd like to see:

- Enemies begin to literally fall apart as they take heavy gunfire or react to an explosion. This may be difficult or impossible to implement without scripting, but at the very least, it should not be as cut-and-dry as clean decapitations, perfect dismemberments or the entire body gibbing at once.

- Blood should pour out and drip down, rather than spray out in an instantly disappearing vapor or stream of funky particles, which is surprisingly how many games still display blood. "Left 4 Dead 2" did a pretty good job with dripping blood. It would be interesting if the enemies could slowly bleed to death if mortally injured.

- In "Doom 3," soldiers could be gibbed after death, but of course it looked awkward. A better solution: All enemies can be gibbed after death if they are plugged with enough bullets or explosive weaponry to cause them to simply fall apart.

- "Brutal Doom" had some interesting custom death animations such as being set on fire, burnt to a cinder, bludgeoned or slain via berserk pack. That would be great to see in the new game.

Hopefully I'm not being too creepy here. Like I said, id has no reason to focus all their resources into making the gore so spectacular that it becomes the only reason to play. But it's important to make it satisfying to kill enemies, which "Doom" did such a great job of because, despite being low-resolution sprites, they looked great and had very violent death sequenes.

For gore, they should just model their gore effects after Brutal Doom. The cool thing about Brutal Doom is that there is so much variety in how you can kill the monsters. Each weapon has different effects on each of the monsters. For example, the SSG can blow off zombie's entire torsos and also blow Barons of Hell and Hell Knights in half. The minigun can blow zombies and imps apart piece by piece. The plasma gun reduces all monsters to lumps carbon. The BFG blows all the flesh off of imps and zombies and reduces them to bloody skeletons. All monsters can be gibbed. All this gives more variety in how to kill the monsters. It makes the game more interesting and not so boring. You are right that it is important to make it satisfying to kill the enemies. That is something that Doom 3 failed at. Killing the monsters unfortunately was really boring in Doom 3. Hopefully, they don't make the same mistake in Doom 4.

One of the best things about RAGE was that it had all those amazing hit / death animations and that they were fully integrated into the animation system so they all felt very natural. I hope they will do the same for DOOM 4 and hopefully expand it even further. Unfortunately gibbing was only present in the form of a full body gib upon being directly hit with a rocket / grenade.

For gore, they should just model their gore effects after Brutal Doom. The cool thing about Brutal Doom is that there is so much variety in how you can kill the monsters. Each weapon has different effects on each of the monsters. For example, the SSG can blow off zombie's entire torsos and also blow Barons of Hell and Hell Knights in half. The minigun can blow zombies and imps apart piece by piece. The plasma gun reduces all monsters to lumps carbon. The BFG blows all the flesh off of imps and zombies and reduces them to bloody skeletons. All monsters can be gibbed. All this gives more variety in how to kill the monsters. It makes the game more interesting and not so boring. You are right that it is important to make it satisfying to kill the enemies. That is something that Doom 3 failed at. Killing the monsters unfortunately was really boring in Doom 3. Hopefully, they don't make the same mistake in Doom 4.

^Yes^ Multiple death animations add to replay value immensely and make the game tons more fun to play. Gun sound effects should be on par with Brutal as well.